The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - My Vista Experience
I now have a copy of Vista Ultimate in my hands, along with an install code. I've had it for a week. I'm reluctant to install it because I've kinda gotten used to the Vista Business version I have up now. But, I need to be testing Ultimate, it is the OS we will be using on campus.
I wonder what I'll lose in the install? I'm debating whether I should go the upgrade route, or a clean install. I installed Vista Business as an upgrade, not a clean install, although I could have done a clean install if I'd wanted. Now I have software loaded and running, although really, I can reinstall most of it. There is no data stored on the machine, other than a few cookies, so the loss of that is not a big deal.
I do know I've tried some odds and ends on Vista, things that were free downloads, trial versions, freebies, borrowed copies of stuff, etc. If I do a clean install I'll lose all that, and probably forget what those things were, anyway.
I'll be interested to see if Ultimate solves some of the annoying things about AeroGlass. I know for a fact it won't change anything about my disgust for the file system and the explore function. I think I'm pretty much stuck with that the way it is. And I know I'm not into the multimedia stuff that Ultimate is purported to do, so I don't know that I will really get much advantage from Ultimate. One of my coworkers, who's addicted to movies and other media, will probably enjoy her copy more than I will enjoy mine.
But, might as well go there. If I get the print server up and running well, and I get the DVD combo drive installed like I want, then I can have time to play with Vista Ultimate this weekend. We'll see how far I get.
Not really, but it sounds like a great title for a song. I have not been able to print from the Vista box on my home network, and this has started to become a problem. To make matters worse, the Win95 box, an old Gateway 2000, has started to flake out, rebooting itself for no reason and getting BSOD's. The thing has been sitting in a corner in the downstairs office, faithfully running the HP Laserjet 5M for the last year and a half. I don't even have a monitor on it because it is so stable. But over the weekend the kids complained they couldn't print, and I couldn't print either, then we started to get errors like "network printer not found" and "HP Laserjet 5M doesn't exist on this system." I borrowed one of the kids' monitors, rebooted Old Faithful, and it came up fine. Had one error about the mouse but seemed okay. We were able to print again.
The next day, we were back to being unable to print. I hooked up the monitor again, this time Old Faithful had a BSOD. I suspect it's been infected and corrupted. Hard to keep a Win95 box clean in this day and age.
So, I've brought home an out-of-warranty Dell GX260. This weekend I'll load XP on it, get it set up on the network with a nice unique name (print_server might work), and solve our printing problem. Then we'll see if the Vista machine can finally print to my home network.
"As a seasoned IT pro agree with many of your comments especially about file extensions. Having just started using Vista yours was the fifth link on Google in my search to have file extensions displayed at all times. But you didn't tell me! Please blog again if you do know."
Well, James, as you know from reading my blog, Windows Explorer in Vista is quite a piece of work. I am one of those right-click-start-explore people, never did want to have to minimize a bunch of windows just to get to My Computer and then not really be able to see what I wanted to see without a lot of manipulation. I just want to look at my file system, like opening a file cabinet drawer in my office. Various versions of Windows have all had their problems, but at least there were workarounds; I've always added in a line of code in regedit mode that made C: appear with only its folders, not defaulting to My Documents under User-UserName-blah-blah-blah. I haven't found that fix in Vista.
And as for those file extensions, we always knew we could go to Tools-Options and change that in any Windows Explorer window. In Vista, there is no Tools-Options. In fact, there's hardly a menu at all. But if you look just under the address bar (or whatever that thing is called that tells you what folder you're looking at), you will see a button menu that includes "organize," "views," and "burn." Under organize is the familiar "Folder and Search Options" selection; if you click that and then go to view, you can turn on the file extensions (they are turned off by default, as they always are in Windows, because, you know, WHY would we want to know file extensions or anything?). In order for this to populate through the whole of Windows Explorer, you have to change this function while being in the Computer view. If you do it on the folder that is highlighted in Windows Explorer at the time, it will only change that folder and nothing else. So, in the address bar, be sure you click on "Computer" at the beginning of the string of location names, then go to organize, Folder and Search Options, View tab, then uncheck the "Hide extensions for known file types" check box.
I encountered this article in our local paper. This is from the tech column. I have yet to hear anything good about Vista from anyone, geek or not. The scary part is that we will all be forced to deploy it at some point. All of us.
The more I use it, the more it aggravates me. I have yet to bet a BSOD, but then, I don't get BSOD's on my XP machines. Not even on the XP machines that my kids and husband use, and they abuse them. But I get a lot of problems with the video, even though I've turned off the fancy memory-hogging, energy gulping Aero-glass. I get flashing and windows that won't refresh without being minimized and then maximized again (this happens primarily in my word processes, that is, Word and OpenOffice Writer). I absolutely detest the explorer view of the file system...I can't find anything, it defaults to wanting me to put each and every thing in the My Documents folder. I'm the only user of this computer, I don't want to have to drill down to My Documents and wade through hundreds of files to find that one Excel spreadsheet I need. I've always been one to arrange my hard drive like a file cabinet, with folder names that make SENSE and that I will recognize when I'm looking for something. And while I can still do this in Vista, getting to the base/root of the C: drive takes a lot of drilling down. What a pain in the fingers!
I'm still using the machine at least two or three days a week, if for no other reason than I want to get used to it, and figure out how to find things. But it still annoys me each and every day. If it annoys someone like me, who is a geek, what the heck is it doing to the people who are just standard home users?
I have had so much trouble with the Aeroglass feature that I'm shutting it off. "Stunning" it isn't. It causes the video on this pc to go wonky and flashy, and every time I visit a site with java, it goes into basic Vista display mode anyway. What's the point? I have also noticed that it hogs an awful lot of memory when it is active.
So, off it went.
I'm not sure why it's so "wonderful" to begin with...okay, I can sort of see through the title bar to what is behind. Big deal. The thing I will miss, and that I like the most, is the little window-view that pops up when I rest my mouse on any task bar icon. That was kinda cool. But it's more visual than useful, at least in what I do.
If it wasn't such a hog and didn't make my screen go wonky and flashy, then maybe I'd leave it on. But what a waste of machine resources.
I have heard through several sources that the first service pack for Vista will be released in the third quarter of 2007. As John C. Dvorak said in this week's TWITpodcast netcast, "okay, we can deploy now."
It seems most companies are waiting for that release of SP1 to come out before deploying Vista. This technique worked well for XP's deployment, although SP2 was a more significant change in XP than SP1 was. So, if the sources are correct, more deployment will occur in the fourth quarter after the release of Vista SP1.
I wonder what SP1 will fix. Will it update drivers? Or just give us more annoying activation crap and "calling home to mama" type activities? Will it fix my Windows|Explore menu so I can use it easily? How about correcting the Javascript discrepancy that seems to turn off my aeroglass every time I go to a webpage with javascript in it?
I'll be watching this one closely.
In January our leadership team (i.e. the vice chancellor and other managers for Technical Support Services on our campus) made a decision that until further notice, Vista would not be deployed on campus.
There were several exceptions; staff in the Information Office Systems department, which handles the teaching of all computer-related courses, could begin looking at deploying it in stand-alone classrooms for teaching classes. A few operational machines may get Vista on a case-by-case basis. This means literally less than a handful of machines.
Enough issues have been found that will prevent us from deploying any time soon. We had anticipated initially a January 2008 deployment through attrition as well as through scheduled installs. At this point, that date is definitely in question.
I'm glad I'm getting to play with it. I'm getting more and more used to it, but the learning curve is really steep and I can foresee lots of problems with widespread deployment. It is a bigger curve than the deployment of XP, in my opinion.
I wonder what I'll lose in the install? I'm debating whether I should go the upgrade route, or a clean install. I installed Vista Business as an upgrade, not a clean install, although I could have done a clean install if I'd wanted. Now I have software loaded and running, although really, I can reinstall most of it. There is no data stored on the machine, other than a few cookies, so the loss of that is not a big deal.
I do know I've tried some odds and ends on Vista, things that were free downloads, trial versions, freebies, borrowed copies of stuff, etc. If I do a clean install I'll lose all that, and probably forget what those things were, anyway.
I'll be interested to see if Ultimate solves some of the annoying things about AeroGlass. I know for a fact it won't change anything about my disgust for the file system and the explore function. I think I'm pretty much stuck with that the way it is. And I know I'm not into the multimedia stuff that Ultimate is purported to do, so I don't know that I will really get much advantage from Ultimate. One of my coworkers, who's addicted to movies and other media, will probably enjoy her copy more than I will enjoy mine.
But, might as well go there. If I get the print server up and running well, and I get the DVD combo drive installed like I want, then I can have time to play with Vista Ultimate this weekend. We'll see how far I get.
Not really, but it sounds like a great title for a song. I have not been able to print from the Vista box on my home network, and this has started to become a problem. To make matters worse, the Win95 box, an old Gateway 2000, has started to flake out, rebooting itself for no reason and getting BSOD's. The thing has been sitting in a corner in the downstairs office, faithfully running the HP Laserjet 5M for the last year and a half. I don't even have a monitor on it because it is so stable. But over the weekend the kids complained they couldn't print, and I couldn't print either, then we started to get errors like "network printer not found" and "HP Laserjet 5M doesn't exist on this system." I borrowed one of the kids' monitors, rebooted Old Faithful, and it came up fine. Had one error about the mouse but seemed okay. We were able to print again.
The next day, we were back to being unable to print. I hooked up the monitor again, this time Old Faithful had a BSOD. I suspect it's been infected and corrupted. Hard to keep a Win95 box clean in this day and age.
So, I've brought home an out-of-warranty Dell GX260. This weekend I'll load XP on it, get it set up on the network with a nice unique name (print_server might work), and solve our printing problem. Then we'll see if the Vista machine can finally print to my home network.
"As a seasoned IT pro agree with many of your comments especially about file extensions. Having just started using Vista yours was the fifth link on Google in my search to have file extensions displayed at all times. But you didn't tell me! Please blog again if you do know."
Well, James, as you know from reading my blog, Windows Explorer in Vista is quite a piece of work. I am one of those right-click-start-explore people, never did want to have to minimize a bunch of windows just to get to My Computer and then not really be able to see what I wanted to see without a lot of manipulation. I just want to look at my file system, like opening a file cabinet drawer in my office. Various versions of Windows have all had their problems, but at least there were workarounds; I've always added in a line of code in regedit mode that made C: appear with only its folders, not defaulting to My Documents under User-UserName-blah-blah-blah. I haven't found that fix in Vista.
And as for those file extensions, we always knew we could go to Tools-Options and change that in any Windows Explorer window. In Vista, there is no Tools-Options. In fact, there's hardly a menu at all. But if you look just under the address bar (or whatever that thing is called that tells you what folder you're looking at), you will see a button menu that includes "organize," "views," and "burn." Under organize is the familiar "Folder and Search Options" selection; if you click that and then go to view, you can turn on the file extensions (they are turned off by default, as they always are in Windows, because, you know, WHY would we want to know file extensions or anything?). In order for this to populate through the whole of Windows Explorer, you have to change this function while being in the Computer view. If you do it on the folder that is highlighted in Windows Explorer at the time, it will only change that folder and nothing else. So, in the address bar, be sure you click on "Computer" at the beginning of the string of location names, then go to organize, Folder and Search Options, View tab, then uncheck the "Hide extensions for known file types" check box.
I encountered this article in our local paper. This is from the tech column. I have yet to hear anything good about Vista from anyone, geek or not. The scary part is that we will all be forced to deploy it at some point. All of us.
The more I use it, the more it aggravates me. I have yet to bet a BSOD, but then, I don't get BSOD's on my XP machines. Not even on the XP machines that my kids and husband use, and they abuse them. But I get a lot of problems with the video, even though I've turned off the fancy memory-hogging, energy gulping Aero-glass. I get flashing and windows that won't refresh without being minimized and then maximized again (this happens primarily in my word processes, that is, Word and OpenOffice Writer). I absolutely detest the explorer view of the file system...I can't find anything, it defaults to wanting me to put each and every thing in the My Documents folder. I'm the only user of this computer, I don't want to have to drill down to My Documents and wade through hundreds of files to find that one Excel spreadsheet I need. I've always been one to arrange my hard drive like a file cabinet, with folder names that make SENSE and that I will recognize when I'm looking for something. And while I can still do this in Vista, getting to the base/root of the C: drive takes a lot of drilling down. What a pain in the fingers!
I'm still using the machine at least two or three days a week, if for no other reason than I want to get used to it, and figure out how to find things. But it still annoys me each and every day. If it annoys someone like me, who is a geek, what the heck is it doing to the people who are just standard home users?
I have had so much trouble with the Aeroglass feature that I'm shutting it off. "Stunning" it isn't. It causes the video on this pc to go wonky and flashy, and every time I visit a site with java, it goes into basic Vista display mode anyway. What's the point? I have also noticed that it hogs an awful lot of memory when it is active.
So, off it went.
I'm not sure why it's so "wonderful" to begin with...okay, I can sort of see through the title bar to what is behind. Big deal. The thing I will miss, and that I like the most, is the little window-view that pops up when I rest my mouse on any task bar icon. That was kinda cool. But it's more visual than useful, at least in what I do.
If it wasn't such a hog and didn't make my screen go wonky and flashy, then maybe I'd leave it on. But what a waste of machine resources.
I have heard through several sources that the first service pack for Vista will be released in the third quarter of 2007. As John C. Dvorak said in this week's TWIT
It seems most companies are waiting for that release of SP1 to come out before deploying Vista. This technique worked well for XP's deployment, although SP2 was a more significant change in XP than SP1 was. So, if the sources are correct, more deployment will occur in the fourth quarter after the release of Vista SP1.
I wonder what SP1 will fix. Will it update drivers? Or just give us more annoying activation crap and "calling home to mama" type activities? Will it fix my Windows|Explore menu so I can use it easily? How about correcting the Javascript discrepancy that seems to turn off my aeroglass every time I go to a webpage with javascript in it?
I'll be watching this one closely.
In January our leadership team (i.e. the vice chancellor and other managers for Technical Support Services on our campus) made a decision that until further notice, Vista would not be deployed on campus.
There were several exceptions; staff in the Information Office Systems department, which handles the teaching of all computer-related courses, could begin looking at deploying it in stand-alone classrooms for teaching classes. A few operational machines may get Vista on a case-by-case basis. This means literally less than a handful of machines.
Enough issues have been found that will prevent us from deploying any time soon. We had anticipated initially a January 2008 deployment through attrition as well as through scheduled installs. At this point, that date is definitely in question.
I'm glad I'm getting to play with it. I'm getting more and more used to it, but the learning curve is really steep and I can foresee lots of problems with widespread deployment. It is a bigger curve than the deployment of XP, in my opinion.
